


Epilogue

by apollosflame (lalliana)



Category: CP Coulter's Dalton - Fandom, Dalton Academy Series
Genre: Aftermath, M/M, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-06-14
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalliana/pseuds/apollosflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Just shy of two weeks after Julian jumped from the Art Hall, Logan looks up to find honey-brown eyes blearily watching him. It takes a second for the importance of the image to reach his brain, and then he’s standing and leaning over Julian’s body, barely noticing the sound of the chair crashing to the floor behind him or how Derek jerks awake from the couch beneath the window.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epilogue

Just shy of two weeks after Julian jumped from the Art Hall, Logan looks up to find honey-brown eyes blearily watching him. It takes a second for the importance of the image to reach his brain, and then he’s standing and leaning over Julian’s body, barely noticing the sound of the chair crashing to the floor behind him or how Derek jerks awake from the couch beneath the window.

“Jules,” he breaths and grips the hand he’d been holding even harder, reaches out to brush a strand of limp hair from Julian’s forehead.

“Hey,” Julian slurs, then blinks and smiles. “You sang for me.”

“Of course I did.” He leans down and presses his forehead against Julian’s, closes his eyes and breathes while Derek runs to the door and shouts down the hallway. “Of course, Jules.” 

 

* * *

 

“I am so fucking done with this.”

“That’s nice,” Logan says. He puts his hand at the center of Julian’s back, helping the brunet stay up as he wheezes for breath. “Tell me when you’re ready.”

“You’re heartless,” Julian tells him, then takes a deep breath. “Okay, lets do this thing.”

With a nod, Logan shifts just a bit and wraps his arm around Julian’s waist, bracing him against his chest. His other hand circles Julian’s wrist as he says, “On three: One… two -” and they stand, though Julian almost immediately leans most his weight against Logan, ducking his head and gasping against Logan’s neck. “Three. You need to sit?” he asks, worried at how difficult even this was for Julian.

“’m fine,” Julian murmurs, “Jus’ gimme a sec.”

 

* * *

 

A week and a half later, Julian can finally walk a circuit around the hospital block (slowly, and usually leaning heavily into Logan or Derek) without falling back into bed and passing out from exhaustion. Logan usually stays, doing his homework or singing softly while he waits for Julian to awaken from his nap. But today, Julian just flops down, still breathing hard, and watches as Logan pulls some music from his bag.

Reading through the sheet music, Logan waits quietly for Julian to fall asleep, but when he glances up a quarter of an hour later, Julian’s still watching him through half-lidded eyes. He blinks slowly, visibly worn out, and asks, “Why do you stay?”

Without any hesitation, Logan reaches out and brushes Julian’s hair from his forehead then touches his cheek. He ignores the confused crumple of Julian’s brow, and says, “I like to see you wake up.”

“Logan,” Julian says softly, “the doctors say my brain signals are all fine. I’m not going to slip into a coma again.”

“I know,” Logan says. He touches Julian’s cheek with two fingers. “But sometimes I still dream that you don’t wake up, and I like to be sure.”

 

* * *

 

“Just fucking  _leave,”_  Julian screams, grabs the plastic water bottle from the side table and throws it at Logan. It misses of course, hits the wall beside where Logan is calmly standing, watching Julian with a frown.  _“Dammit,_  Logan!”

“Not going to,” Logan says, serene as he picks up the container and sets it on the table beside him. Glancing up, he sees Derek enter the room and raises an eyebrow at him, before turning back to Julian and crossing his arms. “Why are you flipping out?”

Julian bristles, snarls, “Because I’m sick of seeing your ugly mug here every fucking day. Can I not have some goddamn time to  _myself,_  for once?” His voice cracks, and to Logan’s horror, with one last exclamation of,  _“fuck,”_  Julian starts to cry.

Wide-eyed, Logan glances up at Derek, who looks at Julian as if he sprouted a tail, then back up at Logan and shrugs, bewildered.

“Jules?” Logan asks, and hesitantly walks over and sits beside Julian. The brunet, by now, has curled up in a ball, hands hiding his face and his knees drawn up and pressed tight against his arms. “Hey,” he says gently as he brushes a strand of Julian’s hair to the side, “what’s wrong?”

“Go aw-way,” comes Julian’s muffled response, interrupted by a hiccup of breath.

He sounds so miserable that Logan’s heart hurts, so he moves closer and wraps an arm around Julian’s body, feels the bed dip as Derek does the same thing on Julian’s other side. “Not happening, princess,” he says, and smiles where there’s a short hiccup of laughter. “Now what’s going on?”

There’s a span of silence, and just when Logan thinks they’re not going to get an answer, Julian’s voice answers, barely audible, “I don’t like you to see me like this.”

Logan exchanges a glance with Derek over Julian’s head. “… Jules, remember when you went away for that movie, and came back looking a step away from death?” Logan heard his voice harden, and he could help the rush of anger that had his grip on Julian suddenly turn harder. It was something that never failed to make his blood boil, the memory of how far gone Julian had been back then.

Surprisingly, though, the harsh press of his fingers into Julian’s side is what makes the brunet finally relax.

“This is nothing compared to that,” Logan continues after a moment, once he’s mostly calm again. “We didn’t pity you then, and we won’t now.”

“But that was  _me,”_  Julian says, wiping at his eyes and looking at Logan. “It was  _my_  decision, something I  _chose._  This,” he gestures at himself, at the hospital room, “this was done  _to_  me, and I  _hate_  it.”

“You’re right,” Logan agrees. “And that’s why I judge the hell out of your for the first time, but not for this. Never for this.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh my god you guys are such  _drama queens_ ,” Julian breaths, eyes wide and gleeful as he stares at the video playing in front of him.

Logan regrets bringing the laptop to him.

“You are never,  _ever_  allowed to call me dramatic again,” cackles the bed-ridden teen. He looks up at Logan, who supposes that maybe he doesn’t regret showing the video to Julian, with the spark it brings back to his eyes.  _“Ever.”_

“I am, actually,” Logan says with a roll of his eyes, unable to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching in amusement. Not really bothering to try. “Because while that is a crazy stunt -”

“This is not a stunt, this is  _drama_  -”

“ - that we used as a drastic measure,” he continues, reaching over to flick Julian lightly on the nose, his chest going warm at the way Julian laughs, “You, princess, are dramatic  _all the time_.”

“Oh no, this buys me at least a  _year’s_  worth of dramatics, you do not get to argue with me on this -”

Logan looks up as Julian abruptly falls silent. The entire line of his body is stiff and unhappy, and Logan jerks his attention to the video to see what made him so unhappy - just in time to see the small, pixelated version of Dwight drag Logan’s own counterpart away from the edge of their barricade.

The rest of the video plays on in silence. Julian doesn’t so much as blink, even when the newscasters came back on the screen, confused and delighted at the show being put before their cameras. He still sat tense, staring blankly at the screen until Logan finally sighs and reaches over to close the computer. “Julian.”

 _“Don’t,”_  Julian says sharply, turning his head to look to the trees beyond the paneless window. “Just – just don’t.”

Settling back into his chair, Logan lets the silence reign for a while, watching Julian as he gazes outside. He finds his gaze lingering on certain areas of Julian’s body; the graceful turn of his neck framed with soft tumbles of chestnut hair, the fragile thinness of his wrists resting in his lap, and the smooth line of his back through the open back of the hospital gown. He looks so delicate sitting in the sterile white of the hospital room, and even though Logan knows better than nearly anyone just how strong Julian was, he couldn’t help but feel the need to take him away from everything and protect him.

Blinking slowly away from the train of thought, Logan says, “Everyone made it out okay, you know.”

Julian’s fingers spasm against the blanket. “Except Harvey.”

Logan jerks. But once he gets over the initial pain of the blunt reminder, he’s surprised at how tired Julian’s voice is. There’s no sharp bite in the words, no edges meant to cut, meant to hurt.

Just exhaustion.

So he nods, and though it hurts to say, he agrees, “Except Harvey.”

 

* * *

 

“- in three hours if the doctors expedite your paperwork.”

“Mom.”

“Don’t worry honey,” Dolce’s voice continues as Logan leans his forehead against the door with closed eyes, “they said that it would be easy, they understand -”

“Mom.”

“- that it’s really better for all involved if you came back with us to California -”

_“Mom.”_

The room goes silent for a moment, then Julian continues, quiet but fierce, “I’m not going to California.”

Logan can’t imagine the look on Dolce’s face, but when she speaks she sounds confused. “Of course you’re coming home.”

“Mom -” Julian breaks off for a moment, then continues, more subdued, “Mom, I can’t leave yet.”

“Julian, the doctors said you’re fine to move -”

“That’s not -” He breaks off again, and Logan wishes he were inside, wishes he knew what Julian was doing. If here were running his hands through his hair, or twisting them in the bedding as he’d taken to doing when upset. “That’s not the problem. I need -” Another pause. “Something. And I don’t want to leave my friends. Not yet.”

A sigh from Dolce. “Honey -”

“No,” Julian interrupts again, sharp. “No, mom, you don’t  _get_  it. The last time I saw Derek before I woke up, Adam had just hit him hard enough on the head that he was instantly unconscious. Logan and the other three had just run into an inferno, hoping that they could get out, and when I jumped out of that window I wasn’t even sure if any of them would have survived. I watched as Adam stabbed one of my classmates because he was in the way, woke from being knocked out to find two more tied up and bleeding because they knew too much. Then he put a knife to my throat, so jealous of Logan that the  _sight_  of him tipped Adam into a rage, and made me -”

Unable to listen anymore – unable to let Julian blurt out the confession in the heat of his anger – Logan opens the door, and Julian snaps his mouth shut, turning towards the intrusion. When his eyes – wide and bright with emotion – fall upon Logan he instantly relaxes, as if all the tension in his body is suddenly cut. “Anyway,” he continues, fiddling with the bedding – just as Logan thought – until Logan walks over and places a hand on the back of his neck. Julian leans against him, eyes slipping shut, “I don’t want to leave. I  _can’t.”_

Looking up, Logan finds Dolce staring at them, her gaze focused on the curl of Logan’s fingers against the side of Julian’s neck. He thinks, briefly, about the conversation he’d overheard at the nurse’s station, about how they’d mentioned Julian’s aversion to touch, the way he’d flinch away when they got too close. He brushes his thumb against Julian’s hairline, and Julian goes pliant against him.

Dolce blinks, as if coming out of a trance, and gathers herself. “I’ll think about it,” is all she says, but Logan knows that Julian won.

 

* * *

 

The problem with now knowing that Julian’s Hollywood co-workers were actually  _friends_  with him, is that Logan doesn’t really have any grounds on which to refuse them entry to his hospital room. It did not, however, prevent him from glaring at them with all the rancor he could summon.

However, having Julian curled up against him, fast asleep, probably negated any anger Logan sent their way. One of the girls – Isabel, if he remembered correctly – looked a step away from cooing, and the hot-head of the group had on an expression of horror.

“What.” the hot-head says flatly, the word immediately met by shushing noises when Julian makes an unhappy sound and shifts in his sleep.

He then proceeds to squirm around until his head ends up pillowed on Logan’s lap. The way his fingers grab a hold of Logan’s pants and refuse to let go makes Logan viciously pleased, and he smirks at the astounded expression on the cast’s faces as he runs his fingers through Julian’s hair. Apparently, he muses as he turns back to his book and dismisses them from his mind, they didn’t believe him when he said that Jules had people he trusted here.

 

* * *

 

Logan and Derek are five doors away when the screaming starts. Logan’s heart lodges somewhere in his throat and he lunges forward, not surprised when Derek matches his sprint to the door. When they burst into the room, the first thing he sees is Julian pressing himself against the wall behind his bed, hands clapped over his mouth as if to keep any more sounds from escaping. The terror in his eyes, however, hasn’t yet receded, and the way that he keeps himself tight against the wall tells Logan that he’s not yet over his alarm.

Sweeping his eyes quickly over the room as he rushes to Julian’s side reveals what startled Julian so, and though Logan can read the shock and confusion in the eyes of the unfortunate nurse, it doesn’t stop him from snarling at the man. “What did you  _do?”_

“N-nothing,” the man stammers, hands up in front of him as he continues to back away from the bed. “I just – when I woke him up, he saw me he started screaming.”

Logan eyes him suspiciously for a second, then turns to Julian. Carefully, he pulls Julian’s hands away from his face, concerned at the small crescent shapes left behind on his cheeks from where he’d been digging his nails. “You okay, Jules?”

“Yeah,” Jules says a bit breathlessly, eyes never leaving the nurse. His hands looped around Logan’s wrists, tight enough to edge on painful. “I’m – I’m fine. It was just a dream, and when I woke he looked like -”

 _Adam,_  Logan finishes, looking back at the nurse as he soothes the marks on Julian’s face with his thumbs. He doesn’t look too much like Adam, in all honesty – but the small similarity was probably just enough for Julian’s muggy and nightmare-addled brain to latch onto.

“Okay,” Derek says, running a hand down his face and turning towards the group of nurses crowding the door. “It would probably be best if Julian wasn’t woken by a male, from now on.”

 

* * *

 

Once Julian can walk the hospital block without so much as breathing hard, he sits down, stares at the doctor and says, “I want out of here.”

The doctor sighs. “Mr. Larson, I don’t believe -”

“I really don’t care what you believe,” Julian interrupts, and Logan turns away to hide a smile. “I can walk about without collapsing from exhaustion, you’ve all said I’m not going to slip back into a coma, I really don’t see what the problem is.”

“When a patient is in a coma, even a short one -”

“Brain signals, chances of stuff happening, whatever,” Julian says with a wave of his hand, and this time Logan has to bite his lip in order not to laugh. “But being here really isn’t going to do anything except make me watch you. And if nothing has happened yet, then the chances are super low of any brain fuckery happening anyway. You can keep me here for observation for  _months_  longer and still not be sure whether anything will happen, and I’m just not okay with that.”

The doctor sighs again, pinching his nose. “The nightmares -”

“Are going to happen anyway and not a symptom of any underlying problem, try again.”

“The confusion with the nurse -”

“- we can chalk up to PTSD, which I’ll be seeing a counselor under duress.”

Dropping his head in his hands, the doctor rubs his temples and says, “Well it’s nice to know that my entire medical training can be so easily dismissed by a stubborn teenager, but the fact is that I don’t recommend that you check out yet. Another week -”

“Another week and school will have already started, and I’ll probably have jumped out  _that_  window,” Julian gestures at the wall, “because I can’t handle being in this building for another second.”

“Julian,” Logan says, strangled, and Julian glances over at him, eyes softening into something apologetic.

“It’s doing worse things for my mind being here, Doctor,” Julian says, only glancing at the person he’s speaking to  _after_  the words are out. “I appreciate that you want to do what’s best for me, medically, but I can’t handle it anymore.”

The Doctor watches him for a moment, then with a sigh says, “Four days.”

“Three,” Julian immediately counters.

With a wry look, the doctor says, “Three and an MRI.”

Julian crinkles his nose, but eventually says, “Fine.”

 

* * *

 

Five weeks after waking up – and two days before the long-awaited re-opening of Dalton to the students - Julian walks out of his room on his own power.

He is then, however, forced into a wheelchair but an unamused nurse. “Hospital policy,” is her answer to any type of argument Julian tries to make, and eventually he throws himself into the chair, crosses his arms and  _sulks_  as he’s wheeled out of the hospital.

It’s the best thing Logan’s seen in ages.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was started before the posting of _Seige_ , hence the diversion from canon.


End file.
